Just a Jerk
by Atomic Eyes
Summary: Derek has always been a jerk. Oneshot. Where McDreamy's mind is and why he can't just walk away. MD undertones.


**Title:** Bastard  
**Fandom:** Grey's Anatomy  
**Character/Paring:** Derek, Derek/Meredith undertones  
**Rating:**T for language  
**Spoilers:** All of Season 2  
**Summary:** He's always been a bastard.  
**Feedback:** Please.

He hadn't meant for it to happen. When he ran after her he'd only wanted to, ok, honestly he hadn't gotten that far in his thought process, and his feet had just taken him through the doors and after her. He does know, however, that he hadn't had any plans to have sex with Meredith in an exam room. It might have been something of a fantasy before - before Addison, George, his Veterinarian - but now it was always going to fill his gut with dread.

He couldn't not look at her. He'd have given anything to look at his wife the way he always caught himself looking at Meredith, he'd have given anything to make his feelings just stop, but they wouldn't.

He knew he was a bastard. Derek Shepherd had always been a bastard, in New York his life was about his work, about the surgeries about living the good life. Then he walked into his beautiful house, into the beautifully decorated bedroom and saw his beautiful wife coming around his best friends cock.

Clarity is a sneaky bitch.

He walked away, he didn't fight for the woman he'd honestly considered to be the love of his life. It was over, she was dead to him; he hadn't lied when he'd told Meredith that. It was the moment when Mark's eyes met his from **his** bed, from inside **his** wife, when it happened - He just wasn't in love with her anymore. Derek was a bastard for just not caring anymore.

The life he'd always lived just seemed meaningless to him, so he'd moved on - away; he'd run away like a coward. He'd taken Richard's offer and decided to start over, no glitz or glam. He wasn't going to see nameless, faceless patients, he was going to remember why he'd become a doctor in the first place. He was going to be different; too bad he just couldn't stop being a bastard. A bastard for running, a bastard for lying by omission, a bastard for wanting to live - be happy.

He was also a bastard for not letting go. He had a family, four sisters and close to a dozen nieces and nephews; for all that family - she was the only one that had continued to matter. He couldn't bring himself to let that go, not after she came for him, knowing that he was a bastard and would make her life hell - she came. So he went back, he knew it wasn't going to work and maybe that was why he did it. Maybe deep down in his masochistic places he wanted to punish her because he knew it would hurt and he knew it was going to hurt everyone.

He'd always been a bastard.

But Meredith Grey had taken him by surprise. The first night, it was about sex with a beautiful woman; a way to dull the pain. After that she was like the flame and he was a moth and couldn't care less how much it fucking burned to be near her. It wasn't about the chase; it was about the way he felt when he looked at her; for the life of him he couldn't stop looking at her. He looked at her like he'd seen her naked, like he wanted more, like he could spend the rest of his life just looking at her and be happy, like she was the only person in the world. He just looked at her and she still burned.

He hadn't meant for it to happen. His relationship with her before he didn't even have the decency to regret. Sometimes he looked back and wondered what would have happened if he'd just told her that he'd been running, that she was the only thing keeping him breathing. Even so, he didn't regret one damn minute of his relationship with Meredith.

As he looked at her this time, still feeling the warmth of her skin against his; as he watched the indecision flicker across her face, as he felt the world around him shift; he regretted making her the dirty mistress she'd always joked –not joked-about being. He regretted being the bastard – he didn't want to be the bastard that cheated on the wife he was trying to forgive.

He did the only thing he could do, he said her name. If he was a better guy he would walk away but he was a bastard and he just kept on looking at her.


End file.
